November 3, 2009Personal Mission Statements Should Fuel the Organization’s Mission

Organizations can fuse their mission statement with their employees’ to make a cohesive push toward the same goal. This requires everyone in the organization to write their own mission statements, regardless of their roles, with the larger mission statement in mind.

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This clip is really telling about Personal Mission Statements, and how they often conflict with the Organization’s core purpose. In this case, like in most cases, the Organization’s mission is to make as much money as possible. So, when Jerry talks about giving more individual attention, this directly conflicts with the Organization’s need to make the most money possible.

Too often this is the case. A mission statement, for an organization, should include who it is helping/impacting (Customers and Employees), what they are impacting, and how they wish to see that impact grow in the future. Many companies have a mission statement so that they can submit it to their PR firm, and never look at it again. A mission statement should be used to rally everyone in the organization behind the same goal, not just as an image booster.

A much more effective way to utilize mission statements is this: organizations can fuse their mission statement with their employees’ to make a cohesive push toward the same goal. This requires everyone in the organization to write their own mission statements, regardless of their roles, with the larger mission statement in mind.

For example: Bama’s Mission Statement is “People Helping People Be Successful,” it is simple, direct and can be applied to almost any time in your business day, whether it be helping a co-worker on a project, helping a supplier get an order together or helping a customer understand the specifics of our process. All of these are people helping people be successful. The beauty of that statement is it doesn’t relegate our employees to only help the customers, it allows, and expects, them to be helpful to everyone who crosses their path.

Here is an example of a personal mission statement, an Employee of Bama: “My mission in life is to have deep meaningful relationships with family and friends, always bring humor and fun to any situation and to contribute my intelligence and skill towards helping people be successful at Bama.”

That mission, and the mission of all Bama employees should support the over all mission. In this way, we all are working toward the same goal and we are all supporting each other.

Here are some tips on writing a personal mission statement:

Short and Sweet; in other words it should only be one sentence, and it should be profound. The mission statement should really get to your core as a person. It should define what your goals are in the most personal areas of your life.

Easy to Remember; Some people tape up their mission statements on their bathroom mirrors or in their wallets. it is important that it is easy to remember, but can still evoke strong feelings every time you read it.

Tangible and Measurable; this can mean many different things to many different people. If you want to bring humor into the lives of others, then if you made someone laugh today, that is a tangible thing. Or it can be more concrete like “I want to increase my sales by 10% in 2009.” That is a more concrete and measurable goal. This part is just to help you see the impact you make, and to help you feel good about it.

If you are connected and committed to your current job, find out what your company’s mission statement is. If it is something you align with, include part of that in your personal statement. This will help you feel connected to your current position and those around you. It will help you feel as if you are contributing to the greater good.

However, if you have a “Jerry Maguire” experience, it might be time to start printing up some resumes. 🙂